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Background and Biblical Scholarship

This article examines how Jesus was depicted on ancient Christian sarcophagi. Readers will need some knowledge of recent Biblical scholarship for this to make sense.

Sophisticated theories on the origins of Christianity have emerged in the past few decades that challenge the accepted story.  Under the Christian tradition, Christianity originated as the following of a persecuted righteous man, born at the start of the Roman empire who was also God incarnate and whose death on a crucifix included vicarious atonement for all sinners. Until the 18th century, the only aspects of this view to be contested by most scholars was the divinity of the story's main figure, Jesus, also called the Messiah or Christ, both  meaning the anointed one. Recent analyses of Christian origins have introduced hypotheses previously unthinkable to the western Christian world.  Today’s scholarship explores not only the non-divinity of Jesus, but the non-existence of a human Jesus.

There is no consensus in modern scholarship on the origins of Christianity. Some writers, such as Luke Timothy Johnson, conclude that Jesus was indeed who the Church said he was, and that Christianity developed as the Church said it did. Others such as Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy assert that the Jesus story developed after participants of a new cult, Christianity, had spun off from a pagan mystery religion such as Mithraism. Burton Mack,  John Dominic Crossan, Bart Ehrman and a large body of others conclud that a historical but non-supernatural Jesus lie at the the root of the New Testament stories, during the reign of Augustus and Tiberius as reported by gospel stories. G A Wells and Alvar Ellegård independently conclude that the Jesus stories were based on one or more men who lived in the 1st or 2nd centuries BC, upon whom fictional gospels are loosely based. Earl Doherty proposes a model related to Freke and Gandy, where Christianity began with a mythical Christ, originally understood by Hellenistic followers to have resided in a spiritual plane. A century or more later the belief would have been altered by fleshing out this mythical Christ into the earthly Jesus later documented in the gospels. 

Some theories involve multiple origins of a Christian myth. For example, several famous sages, revolutionaries, apocalyptic prophets, philosophers, holy men may have been forged together at a time when one of the many sects of feuding Christians emerged victorious. Those concluding that a single man is at the roots of Christianity still do not all agree on the time of his famous deeds, but most agree on a period between 100 BC (BCE) and 80 AD (CE). If this date range comes as a surprise, note that some of the earliest Christian writers seemed to have the same problem assigning a date to Jesus - even some fairly late ones, such as Epiphanius of Salamis in the late 4th century. Since the gospels of the New Testament do place Jesus in a specific time and setting, one must consider the possibility that the versions of the books of the Bible available to these early Christians lacked information that is present in the version we read today. It's also possible that tales of a persecuted prophet fused with an an independent cult of a mythical Christ figure as proposed by Doherty.

Ancient Christian writings indicate great diversity in the beliefs and practices of early Christians. Modern critics of Christianity frequently cite Theophilus of Antioch, an early Christian writer who, though he uses the term Christian, never mentions Jesus or Christ at all. Theophilus seems to know nothing of a persecuted, righteous teacher or an incarnation of God. The same is true of the Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus, the writings of Athenagoras of Athens, and Minucius Felix, who, in a fictitious dialog, strangely denies that Christianity is associated with a crucified man. The ancient texts discovered at Nag Hammadi in the 1940s reveal a wide range of Christian beliefs including a group who held that Jesus was the resurrected Zarathustra. The books that became the New Testament show a strong conflict between those whose religion is based on faith and those who hold that works are key (James vs. Paul). In critical analysis the New Testament shows signs of attempts to harmonize conflicting traditions. The most commonly cited case of this is Gospel John, which shows strong Gnostic tendencies through most of its chapters, only to have Jesus tersely and explicitly deny Gnostic tenets in two places.

Catholic tradition holds that the range in Christian belief stems from heresies that branched from orthodox belief. It is extremely difficult to reconcile this assertion with the diversity of belief evident in the books of the New Testament, which Christians hold to be the earliest Christian texts, though many scholars disagree. Clement of Rome, for example, seems to predate the gospels, at least in anything like their current form. modern Christian history also holds that, while Gnostic sects such as the Valentinians existed in the city of Rome, they had died off or conformed by the third century and that orthodox Christian belief at that time was very similar to what it is today. A few scholars of Christian exegesis doubt this claim. We think the combined evidence of ancient writings and the carvings on Roman sarcophagi disprove this completely.
 

Carved in Stone

Christian sarcophagi have been grossly overlooked as a tool for investigating early Christianity. By their nature they are much less vulnerable to being revised to alter their details or meaning to conform to current theology than are written materials. We say this despite the merciless "restoration" work visible on many of the sarcophagi, performed, for example, by antique dealers seeking to increase an item's value or by apologists overcome by anxiety about the lack of crosses in early Christian art. These restorations are usually very apparent, and rarely obscure the original composition (occasionally providing humor, when the deceased woman's portrait is recarved as Jesus, or when a soldier is recarved as Peter). Furthermore, extant sarcophagi have come down to us through a much more random (less biased) process than have Christian texts, which, independent of any rewriting, have been selected for their suitability to ecclesiastic agendas while others were either banned or simply abandoned and forgotten. Where we have only tiny scraps of the earliest Christian manuscripts, there is a wealth of ancient information written in stone that can be inspected first-hand by anyone with access to the world's great museums and churches. To be sure, some sarcophagi have been reworked and others are modern forgeries, but many exist, particularly in Rome, with imagery that can be solidly identified as 4th and 5th century work. Surprisingly, this imagery tells stories somewhat different from those of the gospels.

No Christian sarcophagi can be firmly traced to earlier than the third century, and even these are rare and disputed. Various theories have been proposed for this lack of evidence of early Christianity. Some suggest, on the basis of Exodus 20:4 ("shall not make for yourself an idol"), that the earliest Christians were aniconic (rejected icons) like the Jews of the same period. This thesis is flawed on several fronts. For one, existing evidence refutes the claim that Judaism was aniconic from pre-Christian times into the 6th century. 20th century excavations at Dura Europos revealed an early synagogue with rich iconography. More interesting still, the iconography at Dura Europos appears rather unrelated to the Christian iconography of the same period. Furthermore, the earliest Christian writers report that Christian clothing and household objects were richly decorated with biblical illustrations. These early writers, such as Tertullian (On Modesty, 7.1) and Clement of Alexandria (The Instructor, 3.11.59 - "let our seals be either a dove, or a fish, or a ship scudding before the wind, or a musical lyre...") did not appear to be critical of such usages of Christian art. Charles Murray, in his exhaustive investigation, concluded that there was no real condemnation by early church fathers of non-idolatrous iconography in the early centuries of Christianity.

A more likely reason for the lack of Christian art before the fourth century is that the number of Christians was very small.  Written accounts purporting that Christians were an important component of first and second century Rome, are now increasingly thought to be later forgeries. For example, the brief mentions of Christianity in Josephus and Suetonius are sufficiently problematic (e.g., brevity, inconsistent language, lack of citation by subsequent writers whose point would benefit from citing it) to raise questions of their authenticity. Likewise, Tacitus's description of the "vast multitude" of Christians persecuted by Nero is inconsistent with other contemporaneous Roman histories and even the descriptions of Paul's ministry in Rome in the Acts of the Apostles suggest that Christianity was a tiny club at the time of Nero. If authentic, Tacitus' passage tells us only of thoughts toward Christians in his own time and cannot reasonably be read as an account of Nero's handling of a vast multitude. Against its authenticity, Eusebius, the church historian of the fourth century, makes no mention of the passage when it clearly would have been in his interest to do so.  Several modern writers have proposed that Christianity was basically a Roman invention - one that occurred in the second century. They conclude that Acts was written at that late time, in attempt both to meld together the largely unrelated epistles of Paul and certain of the large body of then-circulating Gospels. Perhaps more importantly - at least for Christianity's presence in Rome - Acts introduces - and develops at great length – the idea of apostolic succession, absent from the Gospels, but absolutely essential to a hierarchically organized sect of Christianity that was the ancestor to Catholicism. Acts, not Paul’s own writings, placed Paul in Rome. Christian tradition, not any text of the Bible, placed Peter in Rome.

Whether Christians were present in Rome before the third century, scant archaeological evidence exists [1]. The late third century then shows an explosion in popularity of biblical themes, probably the result of the rapid growth of Christian sects at that time. As mentioned above, ancient writings reveal a great variation in beliefs between these sects, which show Gnostic and Docetic elements to various degrees. Marcionism and Valentinism, against which the church fathers railed, were popular in Rome. Although vicious doctrinal disputes between sects existed, these might be characterized as brutal wars of small differences - fine points that outsiders and even modern Christians might not recognize. These sects were, for the most part, either extinguished or absorbed by what later became orthodoxy. Their writings are commonly referred to by the misleading term, apocrypha. As stressed by David Cartlidge, the term brands these books as clandestine; and they were nothing of the sort. Despite later condemnation by church authorities and the insinuation that these books all derived from those later judged to be orthodox there is no basis for the notion that those who used these books saw themselves as being part of splinter groups, or that the distinction of orthodox was in any way meaningful in the third century. Christian sarcophagi portray stories from what must have been thought by their patrons to be the key events of the Christian story, whether that story was oral or written.

Granted, the fourth century sarcophagi in Rome, due to limitations of their medium, cannot provide the details of Christian belief given by the books of the New Testament or the writings of the early church fathers. But they do tell quite a bit; and of what they do tell we can be certain, since it is carved in stone. Christian sarcophagi have mainly been the focus of the fields of history of art and Christian apologetics and devotion. There has been an astounding lack of interest in Christian art by those involved in the study of Christian origins, an enterprise almost solely devoted to ancient texts. We propose that opportunities abound for synthesis and interdisciplinary study.
 

Imagery of a New Faith

Of 412 total scenes, we counted 68 where Jesus or Peter use wands to perform miracles. Occasionally, Moses and Ezekiel also use a wand to bring water from a stone or to resurrect dry bones. Also, very rarely, Jesus carries a wand but is not using it to conduct power by contact. That sarcophagi miracles are represented as magic, by virtue of the wand (virga), deserves more study than it has received. Nowhere in the Bible is there any indication that Jesus would use a wand. Apologists have attempted to explain it as a staff of authority, but on the sarcophagi the wand does appear with Jesus in any role of authority. The meaning of a wand would have been completely unambiguous in ancient times; it was the primary symbol of magic in eastern and western art of the period. The wand is a common symbol of the Roman mystery cults, whose savior-heroes, like Jesus, performed magic healing, and whose followers formed intense personal bonds with a savior-hero.

Modern Christianity succeeds in differentiating between magic and divine powers, but this was not always the case. The pagan writer Celsus, as quoted by the Christian writer Origen, asked whether we should regard all the other magicians trained by the Egyptians as son of God also. Origen, in his multi-volume diatribe against Celsus, did not claim that Jesus' magic itself was unique. He instead argued about its source. Early Christian writers describe contests of magic between Peter and Simon the Magus. Justin Martyr made desperate, but rather unconvincing attempts to differentiate Jesus' magic. The fourth century bishop, Athanasius, largely responsible for the selection of books that make up the New Testament (although proto-canons appear to have existed, at least regionally, much earlier), tied himself in a bit of a logical knot, explaining that Jesus was not a magician, but that his magic triumphed over that of other magicians. Morton Smith, in a compelling but technically flawed 20th century work, also claimed that Jesus was a human sorcerer. This interesting topic is outside the realm of our study. We make no assumptions or conclusions about the historicity or nature of Jesus; we are merely concerned with how Romans pictured him in artworks and in texts, from which it is impossible to tell  whether they perceived him as earthly man or god, an ethereal god who operated in a sphere not accessible to mortals, or the hero of written works of fiction.

Jesus' wand almost always appears with the multiplication of loaves and fishes, but is never used for healing the blind man, the paralytic, or the woman with an issue of blood. These healing scenes instead involve direct bodily contact - the laying on of hands. Margaret Jensen suggests that early Christians may have thus seen healing as a less magical feat, performable by mere wise men, differentiating "medicine" from real magic. The biblical Jesus defends himself against accusation of being a magician. It seems unlikely that Jesus would have confused his audience by denouncing magic while using a magician's wand, particularly if his message was that the source of his healing power was God the Father. Thus we cannot reconcile certain parts of the Gospels with some of what we see on the sarcophagi.

The wand was not merely an artistic device to ensure that viewers could identify the scriptural miracle being shown. Scenes of Lazarus, the miracle at Cana, and the loaves and fishes did not require the wand to allow their association to the biblical stories for anyone even remotely familiar with the biblical stories. If viewers were expected to recognize less dramatic scenes like the abduction of Habakkuk and Jesus before Pilate, they certainly wouldn't need to see a wand in order to recognize the resurrection of Lazarus. It thus seems fairly certain that at least the typical 4th-century Christian consumers of sarcophagi pictured Jesus as a magician - a divinely powered one perhaps, but a magician nonetheless. Apologists have argued that such imagery could be the product of those on the fringe of orthodoxy or of illiterates without firsthand access to the scriptures. This argument is weak on several counts. First, since the magician images are the most common images on Christian sarcophagi of the period, we must conclude that if they were out of step with authors of scriptures or other early Christian writings, then, by definition, it was those writers who were in the minority position and therefore out of step with popular belief. Second, portraits of the deceased holding scrolls on many sarcophagi indicate that they were in fact educated and literate. Finally, illiterate peasants would not likely be able to afford ornate marble sarcophagi.

By our count, the two most common scenes from scriptures appearing on sarcophagi both involve wands. The most common is the well known story of multiplication of loaves and fishes - actually, stories, since the four canonical Gospels include six descriptions of feeding the multitude - all describe feeding the 5000 (Matthew 14:17, Mark 6:37, Luke 9:13, John 6:7), and only Mark and Matthew include the 4000 (Matthew 15:32, Mark 8.1). Multiplication of loaves and fishes appear in all four canonical gospels, and in quite a few others. This is the only miracle story common to all canonical Gospels. The number of baskets represented on sarcophagi varies, probably due to space and composition limitations. There seems to be some interaction of the multiplication of loaves and Eucharist scenes, although the latter never correlates with a Last Supper. The number of guests in all Eucharist scenes is seven, a possible reference to the post-resurrection appearance to the seven disciples (John 21). For Clement of Alexandria, the loaves represent the Jewish Law "and the fishes signified the Hellenic philosophy that was produced and moved in the midst of the Gentile billow, given, as they were, for copious food to those lying on the ground, increasing no more, like the fragments of the loaves, but having partaken of the Lord's blessing" (Stromata 6.11.94).

Since the most repeated miracle story in the Bible is the story most commonly shown on sarcophagi, it may come as a surprise that the second most common sarcophagus scene does not appear in the Bible at all. Nor is it ever mentioned by early church fathers in extant writings. However, it does appear in the apocryphal book, Acts of Saints Processus and Martinianus. In it Peter strikes a rock and produces water, echoing Moses in Exodus 17:6, and then baptizes his jailers. Roman Christian tradition holds that this event took place in the Mamertine Prison (Tullianum), on the Capitoline Hill in Rome. The prominence of this image, and absence of its story from the Bible, suggest to us that Christianity in Rome was far less catholic than what was reported by the church fathers including Clement of Rome, Clement of Alexandria, Ignatius, Irenaeus, Origen, and even Eusebius. Peter is again the subject of the fourth most common sarcophagus image - the related scene of his capture and arrest, again not present in the canon. Joseph Wilpert concluded that the images of Peter's arrest were derived from the story of his arrest by Herod Agrippa (Acts 12:3-19). This seems highly improbable, given that Peter's water miracle is absent from Acts, the Roman dress of his jailers, and the persistent tradition of Peter in Rome [2]. Furthermore, none of Peter's miracles that actually do appear in Acts ever appear on sarcophagi. Some of Peter's miracles from Acts would make impressive carvings, such as his resurrection of Tabitha or his miraculous murder of Ananias and Sapphira. The popularity of the image of Peter's arrest on sarcophagi might be seen as supporting the assertion that Christianity is primarily a product of Rome, and continues the propaganda work of Acts, serving to locate Peter in Rome, thereby strengthening the apostolic-succession argument for Rome's claim to the seat of Christianity (before such efforts were made unnecessary by Rome's official adoption of the new religion). 

Occurrences of the most popular images are shown in the large table below, grouped by the sarcophagus on which they occur. Less common scenes are listed in a second table, grouped by image name. Of the scenes listed above, 196, or just under 50%, include Jesus. Seventy three (17%) depict Peter. Of Jesus' miracles, about 45% include wand usage, and 1/3 involve healing by direct contact. Just over 1/4 of the sarcophagus scenes are from the Old Testament, including several Old Testament books whose canonicity is disputed. The most common Old Testament book represented is Daniel, the basis for six sarcophagus scenes, including 18 images (4% of total) of Daniel in the lions' den. Scenes not present in most versions of Daniel, but present on the sarcophagi, include the judgment of Susanna, Habakkuk in his field, and Bel and the dragon. We are specifically excluding a large number of images of the good shepherd from our count. Despite gospel references (e.g., John 10.11 - "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep."), Christian use of the shepherd on sarcophagi is identical to the pagan use of the same image for charity, and cannot really be correlated to a Bible story.

Perhaps more interesting than the frequency of images not central to modern Christianity is what does not appear in sarcophagus images. Nowhere is seen any liaison between Jesus and God the Father. There is no passion, no last supper, no crucifixion, no post-resurrection appearances, no annunciation, few nativity scenes or images of Paul, and no infancy stories beyond the visit from the magi.

Pagan antecedents of Jonah on the beach

The raising of Lazarus (6th most common sarcophagus image) is the only New Testament scene on the Jonah Sarcophagus. Jensen and others read this image as foretelling the resurrection of Jesus. Perhaps so, but since the wand is always present, and the Lazarus image usually accompanies other wand-miracle images, it is equally likely that the Lazarus image celebrates Jesus' magic healing powers like the other scenes where he uses a wand. The imagery we are calling "Lazarus" (John 11:38-44) also correlates with the story of the resurrection of an anonymous man in the Secret Gospel of Mark (Secret Mark), a gospel known only from a quote recorded in a letter of Clement of Alexandria:

As with many of the other images, the rendering of the Lazarus story departs from the text. Instead of a burial cave with a stone covering, the carved images show an above-ground structure with a facade common to Roman temples. This may simply indicate a Roman idealization of burial, and may be influenced by the interest ancient Romans took in more ancient Egyptian cults and myths. Texts now known from pyramids of the 5th and 6th dynasties bear a stronger similarity to the sarcophagus imagery, and, in fact, do relate to a resurrection story - that of Osiris:

The relatively high rate of Old Testament scenes (25%), Daniel and Jonah in particular, reveal a different focus than that of later Christianity. It seems odd to us that Jonah and Daniel as metaphors for Christ's resurrection would be given such attention, when virtually no images directly related to the resurrection appear. Images of the empty tomb and the ascended Christ appear later in Christian art, but rarely on sarcophagi, particularly sarcophagi bearing other images with scriptural parallels. Ernest Cadman Colwell argued that common sarcophagus scenes such as the sacrifice of Isaac, Noah in the ark, Jonah and Daniel all, in fact, do appear in the New Testament as references to the Old Testament text. Thus it is possible that these secondary references were the basis for the sarcophagus images. But this is a stretch. Daniel, for example is mentioned in name only (Matthew 24:15 - mentions Daniel's reference to the abomination of desolation) and perhaps an oblique reference in Hebrews to prophets who shut the mouths of lions. One possibility is simply that details of Jesus' resurrection were unknown or undeveloped in oral tradition and writings of early Christianity. Readers who find this prospect incredible should note that early versions of Mark stopped at chapter 16, giving no explanation of the empty tomb and reporting no post-resurrection appearances. It's also worth noting the author of 1Clement (known as Clement of Rome) appears to have no knowledge of any of the Gospel events; he never mentions them.

The popularity of images of Daniel can also likely be linked to magic. Daniel is described in the book of Daniel as being a magician whose magic, sourced by his God, greatly surpasses that of all the Chaldeans and the magicians of Nebuchadnezzar's court. This parallel to Jesus - superior magic - might well be the reason for Daniel's being the most common Old Testament image on sarcophagi, as opposed to the weak metaphorical relationship between Daniel's survival in the lions' den and Jesus' "survival" of crucifixion.

Peter always uses a wand to draw water from the rock in his prison; but unlike Jesus, he also sometimes carries a wand but is not in the act of using it. According to the apocryphal Acts of Peter, possibly written as early as the second century, Peter often found himself in magician showdowns. He defeated his nemesis by making a dog talk and resurrecting a smoked fish in response to Simon's (the magus) levitation trick. But it seems likely that Peter's unique position as wand-bearer at rest does more that assert his magical prowess. It seems likely that Peter's wand serves as a constant reminder that Jesus has passed his powers as well as his authority to Peter, a message essential to the concept of apostolic succession, securing Rome's position as the seat of the Christian church. Thus Peter's wand actually serves as a combination magic wand and staff of authority. Peter's wand thus falls perfectly in line with the young Roman Catholic church's reliance on the concept of apostolic succession in its defense against rival forms of Christianity now known as heresies [3]. A few modern scholars have proposed that Simon Peter of the Gospels is a sanitized and harmonized version of Simon the Magus. We have not pursued this hypothesis, but Peter's frequent use of a wand on sarcophagi could certainly be seen as supporting it. 

The centrality of the apostolic-succession argument is well shown by Irenaeus in his attack on Valentinus, a rival Christian leader in Rome, and others he called heretics:

Later arguments against Christianity by pagans identified similarities between Jesus and other legendary healers of the day including Apollonius of Tyana, Orpheus of Thrace, and Asclepius. As with Jesus, there was and still is debate as to the extent that these legends were based on living people or were the products of fiction. Unlike the case of Jesus, no imagery of the other healers exists that shows them in the act of healing. If this type of image is in fact a Christian invention, it might partially account for Christianity's explosion of popularity in 4th century Rome, a place where it appears the citizens had grown tired of the impersonal and static imagery of state gods.

Paul appears in very few images. His name is inscribed in one fragment containing his easily identifiable image. His appearance on this fragment matches the description of him in the non-canonical Acts of Paul. Wilpert considered this piece to be a modern forgery. Another fragment may contain a reference to the apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla. The fragment shows Paul commanding a sailing ship named Thecla. If this is truly a reference to the martyr, Thecla, in Acts of Paul, it is an indirect one. Images related to Paul's arrest (mentioned in the epistles and in Acts), and his martyrdom (non-canonical Acts of Paul only) appear on a few of the later sarcophagi.
 

Summary

We find that a high percentage of sarcophagus images related to scriptural texts (whether canonical or not) depict acts that would be immediately identified by ancient viewers as magic. Surprisingly, patristic writings reinforce this view of Jesus as magician, but specify that his powers came from a different source than those of other magicians. Jesus is the most common figure on the sarcophagi, and often performs miracles or acts of magic. The only other New Testament miracle worker to appear is Peter, the second most common figure on the sarcophagi. We speculate that Peter's prominence in sarcophagus imagery and the prominence of his wand are related to desire of the early Roman church to establish apostolic succession from Jesus to Peter and then down to Roman bishops of the time. The claim of apostolic succession was strengthened by sending a visual message to viewers of Christian sarcophagi that Peter had been active in Rome. The disagreement between the narratives in existing texts and  the details of sarcophagus imagery suggest that Christian thought was not nearly as uniform as Christian history suggests it was.

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Notes

[1] Graydon Snyder, in Ante Pacem: Archaeological Evidence of Church Life Before Constantine, lists several dozen pre-Nicene funerary artworks, the vast majority of which are in catacombs. There is some debate about the accuracy of their dating.

[2]  Joseph Wilpert, Walter Lowrie, and Adolph von Harnack are constantly cited in discussions of Christian art and archaeology, and they, no doubt, contributed greatly to our knowledge of this subject matter. They all assumed biblical inerrancy and leapt (great distances) to conclusions about history based on wild extrapolations from vague statements in Acts. For example, both Harnack and Wilpert derive from Acts 12:17 ("[Peter] departed and went to another place") that Peter arrived in Rome in the year 42. Note that Acts never even states that Peter went to Rome. ("Another place" sounds to us like he died. We too love Rome, but equating it with heaven is going too far...) Similarly, Wilpert and Lowrie perpetuate the notions of crypto-Christian carvings and that catacombs were secret Christian hiding places, despite a complete lack of evidence and the utter implausibility that catacomb burials could be kept secret.

[3]  In Matthew 16:16-19, Peter acknowledges Jesus as the Christ, and Jesus responds with the Greek pun about building the church on Peter the rock, and then grants Peter the keys to heaven. Some modern scholars (e.g., see Klaus Schilling's summary of Arthur Drews' "Die Petruslegende") point out that this singling-out of a disciple is a curious component of the gospels, in conflict  with the proclaimed equal mission of all disciples as judges over Israel. Michael Hoffman and Robert Price also explore this point.

Online Sources

All of the extant ancient writings we examined in relationship to Christian sarcophagi have been organized and formatted for the web by Peter Kirby at earlychristianwritings.com.

The Yahoo Jesus Mysteries forum is a well-regulated and productive investigation of the roots of Christianity, exploring theories of Jesus as a historical person, a mythical figure, a fictional character, a theological construction, and various combination of these.

General Bibliography

David Cartlidge. Art and the Christian Apocrypha. 2001. ISBN-13: 978-0415233927.

Ernest Cadman Colwell. "The Fourth Gospel and Early Christian Art". The Journal of Religion, Vol. 15, No. 2. (Apr., 1935), pp. 191-206.

Paul Corby Finney. The Invisible God: The Earliest Christians on Art. 1997. ISBN-13: 978-0195113815.

Robin Margaret Jensen. Understanding Early Christian Art. 2000. ISBN-13: 978-0415204552.

Robin Margaret Jensen. Face to Face: Portraits of the Divine in Early Christianity. 2004. ISBN-13: 978-0800636784.

Jensen's books are probably the best sources on Christian art that are easily available, despite apologetic leanings and limited familiarity with patristic writings; at times her selection of citations seems a bit disingenuous. She seems to see Christian art as operating completely outside the realm of Hellenistic art. For example, she explores various theological reasons for Daniel's nudity, including issues surrounding baptism and his "prefiguration of the resurrection", yet fails to consider the obvious: Christian sarcophagi were made by Romans. Daniel is both magician and hero. Roman heroes are nude. Voila.

Walter Lowrie. Art in the Early Church, Pantheon Books. 1947. ASIN: B000PXTSCI.

Thomas F Matthews. The Clash of Gods: A Reinterpretation of Early Christian Art . 1999. ISBN-13: 978-0691009391.

Matthews's book, dedicated to destruction of what he calls "The Emperor Mystique" argues convincingly against the view that fourth century portrayal of Jesus was derived from Constantine-style political imagery. That view, once popular, is a bit of a straw man today. Matthews also seems to deny the possibility that ancient artisans might be influenced by the appearance or styling of an imperial image without intending to retain or convey any of the meaning behind the original image. Despite this, the book is a great overview of early Christian art.

Morton Smith. Jesus the Magician: Charlatan or Son of God? 1998. ISBN-13: 978-1569751558.

Joseph Wilpert. "Early Christian Sculpture: Its Restoration and Its Modern Manufacture". The Art Bulletin, Vol. 9, No. 2. (Dec., 1926), pp. 89-141.

Copyright 2007-8 by William Storage and Laura Maish. All rights reserved.

Publication history:
8/6/2007 - Originally posted on bstorage.com.
10/28/2007 - Annotated about 100 of the images, identifying the biblical references. Corrected a few Vatican inventory numbers. Added six key pages. Added thumbnail images to this page.
11/6/2007 - Further annotated the image pages. Minor corrections.
3/20/2008 - Moved to www.rome101.com
4/11/2008 - Added paragraph on Lazarus imagery and quotes from Irenaeus, along with short scripture excerpts accompanying some of the citations